from Bruce Wainwright
The Blood Transfusion Service will not allow HIV negative
gay men to give blood. If it’s properly screened, why are these men
being refused the chance to help save lives? Prejudice, perhaps…
I’ve had the clap so often, it sometimes sounds like applause. Add to
this a dose of malaria and 18 years with HIV and you could understand why
anyone lying in the gutter with their throat cut wouldn’t be too anxious
to share my blood products. I would not, however, imagine that this record
of misfortune and bad behaviour would apply to most gay men, however much
they may be portrayed and see themselves as shamelessly promiscuous.The majority
of gay men are not HIV positive and otherwise,
possessed of no more sexually acquired infections than the rest of the population,
yet the Blood Transfusion Service doesn’t think their blood is safe
to use. The guidelines for blood transfusion and tissue transplant state that
a gay man who “has ever had oral or anal sex with another man, even
if a condom was used,” should not donate blood. Now, in the early days
of the HIV epidemic, when testing was slow and expensive, a reluctance to
use the blood of ‘at risk’ populations was quite understandable.
The tragedies associated with the
transmission of HIV through blood transfusions and the failures of those responsible
for supplies to ensure patient safety must inevitably haunt those who now
manage the service. But those
concerns must, by now, have been addressed and the safety of blood products
assured. Testing is quick, relatively cheap and, as far as I’m aware,
reliable. However, if this is not the case, then I do believe that we should
be told about it. What other ‘at risk’ groups aren’t allowed
to donate blood? Intravenous drug users? Sure. Immigrants and asylum seekers
from Africa? Quite possibly. There is, perhaps, a statistically unacceptable
risk that members of these groups will, wittingly or otherwise, be carrying
the virus, and for that reason, exclusion of the entire group would seem a
sensible means of avoiding a good deal of wasted effort. But what about the
rest of the population? Does the transfusion service take it on trust that
the rest of the population is free from blood-borne viruses or does it test
for them? I do hope not, because apart from a rather restricted group which
might include lesbian nuns, everyone is at risk these days of acquiring HIV.
The risks may not be the same in all groups of the population, but no group
can be guaranteed virus-free. For my part, if someone assures me he’s
HIV negative, I say: “Sure, good for you” and slip on a Johnny
just the same. I have long subscribed to the belief that we are all responsible
for our own continuing good health, and that necessarily means taking a somewhat
jaundiced attitude to the assurances which we might receive before slipping
into the back seat of a taxi or under the duvet. After all, a chunk of those
positive gay men don’t even know they are positive, and you can bet
there are plenty of rampant
heterosexuals out there who don’t know it either, to say nothing of
that other group that know it, but don’t give a damn. So I would hope
that the Blood Transfusion Service has a no less sceptical attitude towards
any assurances which might be given to them and test accordingly. Now, if
blood is routinely tested anyway, why the bizarre exclusion of HIV negative
gay men? And what’s with the bit about “oral sex”? I was
always given to believe that, apart from kissing and self-abuse, this was
one of the safest ways to have sex; and, thanks to the safe-sex message, there
are plenty of gay men around who have always used condoms with a religious
enthusiasm and continue to test negative. So, perhaps someone from the Blood
Transfusion Service could explain what might appear to some as a short-sighted,
not to say prejudicial and Neanderthal attitude. I may be missing a point
here, but I can’t see why HIV negative gay men who have “anal
or oral sex” should be told to bugger off when they try to donate their
blood. People with HIV have enough prejudice to put up with in the normal
way of things, but to get it from an organisation such as this is really not
on.
